


Catch the Moon

by MercurySkies



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Archivist Shane, Betrayal, Con Artists, Conman Ryan, M/M, Museums, Prompt Fic, Romance, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 07:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurySkies/pseuds/MercurySkies
Summary: Shane has always been a realist, he can see things for what they are. He sees Ryan. Ryan Bergara is a con man.





	Catch the Moon

Shane figured out pretty early on who and what Ryan is. There aren’t many people that go for the archivist type outside of other archivist types. Men like Ryan don’t go for archivist types. Men like Ryan go for men like Ryan, buff, athletic, smart as a whip and as quick as the crack of one. Men like Ryan are expensive, more than Shane and his shoe box apartment can afford. Still Shane has his attention and he likes it, he likes being called handsome and smart and funny, he likes being looked at like he’s something to treasure, something to want and yearn for and covet.

Shane works with relics, he works surrounded by priceless pieces of art and manuscripts with no known value other than the invaluable stories they tell. Every day he holds the past in his hands and cares for it and preserves it and covets it. In Ryan’s hold Shane feels like a part of the world, like his life is a roll of film, important in that it adds just a bit more to the world, like someone could look back on his life and find meaning in it.

Shane knows who and what Ryan is, and he should probably be a little offended that he expected him not to figure it out, that Ryan thought him that dense, that infatuated. Shane has always been a realist, he can see things for what they are. He sees Ryan. Ryan Bergara is a con man. He asks too many questions, mining Shane for answers and Shane doesn’t tell him a thing.

They met late one afternoon, back when Shane was part of a team overseeing the delivery of nine, 12th century manuscripts penned by English monks on loan from The British Library. The folios are essentially a Christian textbook on cosmology, containing a set of twelve cyclical diagrams depicting schemata for all manner of concepts from the zodiac to the winds and tides. Shane caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye, lurking somewhere he shouldn’t have been and he knew immediately that men that wear turtlenecks and men that linger where they shouldn’t be are one and the same, and that one is a criminal.

He’d removed his gloves, tucking them into the pocket of his slacks before approaching at a leisurely pace. Ryan hadn’t run, he just lingered and smiled at Shane innocently as if his presence in a restricted area was mere happenstance, an honest mistake.

Everything about Shane’s relationship with Ryan since then has been nothing but a dishonest mistake.

Shane had had him escorted out by security and Ryan hasn’t been able to make it in since. He guesses thats where Shane comes in, seduced into giving him an in. Except, so far, Shane hasn’t been seduced into anything. Oh he’s been seduced alright, he’s been well and truly _ seduced _ . But Ryan probably has nothing more than a cloned key card. Passwords rotate daily, security is biometric. He’s fucked unless he’s got the funds for something heavy duty or Shane gives him a guided tour.

It would be all well and good if this was just a fun little tryst, if Shane could ride the wave until Ryan gets bored and moves on. But Shane knows men like Ryan and he knows himself. He knows that no matter how smart he thinks he is, he’ll always be dumb enough to fall in love. ‘Cause the archivist doesn’t get the pretty boys’ attention often, let alone their sleep soft smiles or their wandering hands and their panting mouths. Men like Shane don’t get wine and dined. So he falls in love even when he knows none of it is free.

“You never get something for nothing.” Ryan says with a grin late one night, neon lights dancing in his dark irises. Another glass of champagne dangles from his grasp and Ryan whisks it out of Shane’s reach every time he reaches for it.

“Name your price.” Shane says, feeling drunk and sloppy and refusing to be embarrassed.

“You know my price, idiot.” Ryan says as he wraps his arms around his waist, tugging their hips flush in the cool air of the terrace bar. “I want you.”

_ If only that were true _ , Shane thinks, as he kisses him like it’s the end of the world.

Happiness has a price and the price is Ryan Bergara walking out of Shane’s museum, manuscript stowed in his satchel.

Shane is waiting for him at his apartment when he comes back. Ryan isn’t the only one that knows how to pick a lock.

“Nice midnight stroll was it?” 

“Jesus fuck Shane! What are you doing sitting here in the dark like a fucking bond villain?”

“If you’re gonna skulk around like the fucking hamburgular I’m gonna sit here in the dark Ryan.”

“I’m not skulk-”

Shane takes the manuscripts out of a sealed case with gloved hands and places them gingerly on the table. Ryan looks at him incredulously.

“They can’t-”

“They are.”

“How?”

“How did you get those forgeries stashed in your knapsack there Dick Dastardly?” He mocks him, anger rising unsteadily in his chest, his heart pounding hard and fast. “I stole it.” He spits. “I stole it before you could. Just to see.”

“See what?” Ryan asks and suddenly he looks so small, scared and sad and Shane hates him for it.

“To see if it’s worth it. To see if it’s worth the last 6 months of my life I’ve spent ass over tea kettle for you.”

There were probably easier ways to confront him but just because Shane lives a humdrum life doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a taste for theatrics, for flair. Sure he’d felt like he was about to die the entire time from the planning to the execution of his little heist, but the pay off? Holding history in his hands, being able to maybe, possibly call it his, to  _ own it _ ? Well that’s euphoria. Now he despises the rich even more with their trinkets and baubles. Why would you bother with flash cars and designer clothes when you could afford the objects that hold the history of humanity in their pages, in their frames?

“They have my brother.” Ryan spits out, wide eyed and desperate.

“Do you think I’m stupid Ryan? You think someone who made a forgery good enough to fool a seasoned con man is an idiot?”

“You- you forged them?” Ryan stutters, impressed.

“I have spent the better part of my life, locked away in tiny rooms, palms sweating in white gloves as I’ve poured over these things, studying them, conserving them,  _ protecting them _ . Of course I forged them.” Shane rolls his eyes, crossing his arms. Ryan swallows.

“At first it was just a score, you were just a mark. I was just supposed to make the grab and I had a fence set up, we were gonna sell and split it. We were only a few weeks in when I pulled out of the deal.”

“Oh pull the other one Ry.”

“No I- You weren’t talking and security was so tight it wasn’t worth my time. That and I, I liked hanging out with you, you’re a good guy and you love the museum and the exhibits I couldn’t do that to you.”

“But you did.”

“My fence already has a buyer, and a pushy one, as soon as word got back to him that I wanted out he took my brother, I don’t know how he found him I’m usually so careful. He’s got my little brother as collateral you have to believe me, I- God I was done, I meant what I said.”

“What are you talking about?” Shane grits his teeth, trying desperately not to fall for it, not to buckle under the despair in Ryan’s eyes.

“My price.” He says simply. “My price is just you.”

Shane rubs at his eyes with his wrists.

“Okay,” he mutters, “okay, okay fuck I’m gonna regret this.”

“My forgery. There’s two, another one currently sits in the real deal’s place at the museum. But, my forgery, how good is it?” Ryan switches on the light and pulls the forged manuscripts from his bag. He spreads the pages across the table, examining the paper, the inks, the colouring.

“The paper and inks aren’t appropriately aged but they look it, you’ve even bound them with the exact same processes. It’s practically perfect.”

“AMS is too expensive for the museum, what about your buyer?”

“I think he’d think I’d be crazy to hand him a fake.”

“Well are you crazy?” Shane asks. Ryan grins.

“Batshit.”

“The true manuscripts are going back to the museum and we’re gonna make one hell of a forgery and get your brother back.”

“Shane...” Ryan breathes, “I can’t ask you to- you could lose your job, you could go to  _ prison _ .”

Shane thinks about it for a split second, wonders if it would be worth the price.

“What good is a life learning about humanity if I won’t attempt to save even a shred of it?” Ryan lunges across the table and kisses him. Shane lets out a muffled moan, half his brain still focused on the manuscripts in front of him, gloved hands hovering protectively over them as if shielding them from their bodies.

“‘I’d steal the moon for you Shane.” Ryan says, eyes bright and soft as a gentle hand caresses Shane’s jaw. Shane grins, eyes dropping to Ryan’s mouth.

“Let’s start with the Book of Kells.”


End file.
